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Life’s How-To Guide

The thing that makes some warriors fight to retain their self is something unrelated to personal concerns. To belong to a lineage of power implies bonds of such a deep nature that our personality is annulled. In that situation, individual choice no longer exists for the warrior, properly speaking. All he can do is accept his destiny and fulfill the commands of the Rule; anything else would just lead to his extinction. ~ Don Juan, Encounters with the Nagual

Awaken to your life’s purpose, be patient, forgive, embrace pain, meditate, transform, transcend, go-within, change, release, heal, pray, focus, create your reality, believe, hope, be positive, do yoga, find inner peace, let go of desire… in other words become like everyone else in a spiritual way. There are guidebooks, gurus, classes, workshops and how-to-guides all over the internet including instructions on How to Become More Spiritual on eHow, rated as “moderately easy”.

Ironic. Even as I am writing this post I received several comments from one reader entitled, Why does the human need the spiritual teachings? and an Introduction to spiritual teaching. While the submitted content is somewhat aligned with the very thing I am expressing here as well as contradictory to it, it is a cut and paste of the words of a so-called “prophet” and excessively lengthy so I chose not to promote it here.

This mentality tells us that it’s not okay to be anxious, fearful, wounded, true to ourselves, etc. and that if we experience those feelings or emotions that we are un-evolved losers who need to work harder at identifying the components that keep us in the undesirable realm of being human. It tells us that we cannot really question anything; to just trust. It tells us that we cannot be who we are, we cannot be honest with others and that ultimately, our goal is to ensure that we are making everyone feel good in their “happy” place. As my mother, an amazing western stalker has often said, “Can we please, just cut through the psycho-babble bullshit?!” Thanks mom!

Always doing. Doing this, doing that, aspiring to become something other than ourselves, even in the realm of the spiritual, in the name of god. Yeah, I’ve taken that journey and I worked at becoming a bodhisattva of compassion, to forgive all of the evil in the world, to become one with the pain of the earth, to stay in the breath and think only positive thoughts. To choose happiness and smile, smile, smile. I tried it and I’ve rejected it. It’s a pattern playing off of another pattern, playing off of another pattern. A pattern that continuously morphs and transforms in order to keep up with the changing times and syntax. The same old thing with different labels.

This is not to say that these things are not fulfilling to some, maybe even to most, yet even these attributes, these characteristics are components of compliance to a system of being that imposes expectations upon the masses to exist in la-la land within the myth of salvation. The distraction being losing our selfas we descend deeper and deeper into the false matrix. Social conditioning for a brave, new world. Yes, I can hear the protests, the objections, and the judgment. It’s okay though, everyone is entitled to the reality they choose to create.

Will it ever be okay to find solace in being who we truly are without buying into the laws of social conditioning, the latest trend, the coolest crowd, the spiritual teachings of another? Even this blog or the work of Castaneda. Don’t buy into it. Test all waters, explore, find your path. I know many people who are unable to align themselves with the how-to-guides. Do you know what happens to them? They consider themselves failures and they become alcoholics to escape from their inability to adapt or their shrinks put them on meds. “Sorry, you are a hopeless case and you didn’t accomplish your task of fitting into the round hole. Take some Lithium, Valium, Ritalin, Prozac, Adderall, Paxil…become stabilized and function as best as you can in a matrix where you don’t quite fit in. Go to sleep.”

Yes, it seems that the answer is, on all levels, go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep. Nighty night and sweet dreams.

But why? Why do you need prophets to tell you how you ought to live? Why do you need anyone to tell you how you ought to live. ~ Daniel Quinn, Ishmael

Becoming Awareness

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